Scholar

It's one of the greatest stories ever told: A baby is found in a basket adrift in the Egyptian Nile and is adopted into the pharaoh's household. He grows up as Moses, rediscovers his roots and leads his enslaved Israelite brethren to freedom after God sends down 10 plagues against Egypt and parts the Red Sea to allow them to escape. They wander for 40 years in the wilderness and, under the leadership of Joshua, conquer the land of Canaan to enter their promised land.

Tonight, four days after the 50th anniversary of Anne Frank's death--memorialized around the world last week by public readings of her eloquent diaries--South Coast Repertory weighs in with its own Holocaust commentary: a NewSCRipts presentation of Peter Sagal's "Denial." The Harvard-educated writer, 30, believes that the SCR Mainstage reading of his new play could not come at a better time or in a more appropriate place.

"World's Fair" is E. L. Doctorow's portrait of the artist as a young child. The author's alter-ego, Edgar Altschuler, grows into an awareness that the world stretches far beyond the protective confines of a Bronx Jewish household. It was a quieter passage than Stephen Daedalus' vehement breakout from a constricted Dublin youth, and conducted with far greater cautiousness.

The sale price was $59.95, a bargain we could hardly believe. After bringing them home, I pulled two from their individual cardboard boxes, set them up and admired them. They were beautiful, and they were ours. I ran my hand across the wood, feeling the slick finish while experiencing the pride of ownership. We sat down in front of them. "A little high," I said. "A little heavy," my wife said. "We'll get used to them," I said. "Will we really?" she asked, unsurely.

Only rarely does a judge in a criminal case overturn the verdict reached by jurors in her own courtroom. Still rarer is the judge who admits to committing an error so serious it taints a verdict. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor did both Friday night in an extraordinary ruling that overturned the convictions of three Rampart Division police officers, impressing legal scholars with both her tightly reasoned legal arguments and her unusual candor.

When Natalia Moskvitina immigrated to the United States from Latvia nine years ago, the 19-year-old arrived with a few belongings and dreams of a better life. Her goals did not include continuing her education. But nearly a decade later, the mother of two, now 28, has completed a rigorous, full-time course of study at Glendale Community College in less than two years.

Republican critics of affirmative action hailed Monday's Supreme Court decision as a mandate for even more sweeping action by Congress and vowed to press home their attack on federal programs of racial preference.

Harrison E. Salisbury, that molder of scholarship with the felicitous phrase, has surpassed himself in this excerpt from his book ("The Last Emperor," Jan. 26). I look forward to savoring the whole feast. FRANCES L. SANFORD La Jolla

As I read Dennis Hunt's insightful April 9 article on rock's most fascinating teen star, I began to realize there was another dimension to Tiffany that has yet to be uncovered. She is an analyst of the socioeconomic repercussions of being a bimbo. As a bimbo analyst myself I've never been able to pinpoint exactly where they are bred and kept but, Tiffany opened my eyes by stating "So I come from Norwalk? OK, so it's not Beverly Hills, but it's not the slums, either. Does that make me a bimbo?